Hello everyone -- this is Fred Smith, at the CDC. We will be announcing prizes to the CDC Flu App Challenge on this blog on Wednesday July 6 by 5:00PM EST.

I wanted to post this preliminary announcement note to say how very impressed we were by the quality, creativity, and enthusiasm demonstrated in the 96(!) submissions we received. Speaking for both the judges and my colleagues at the CDC - thank you for your hard work. Not only is there a ton of cool technology on display (web apps, widgets, iOS apps, Android apps, HTML5 entries, Facebook apps, foursquare…

This is Fred Smith again, Technology Team Lead. The good news is that CDC is still in the review process for the Flu App Challenge, and we continue to be impressed by the response! The bad news is that because of the strong response, additional steps remain at CDC to complete the review process and announce our winners. We're now scheduled to reveal the winning submissions before 5:00PM EDT on Wednesday July 6.

On behalf of the team, I apologize for this additional delay, and look forward to congratulating our winners.

Thank you again for your hard work! We are delighted to have 96 submissions for the CDC Flu App Challenge, and are looking forward to the announcement of the winning entries.

In reviewing your submissions, we’ve noticed that some of you have included the CDC logo in your featured image gallery. While we appreciate your enthusiasm, and CDC content and data is in the public domain, the CDC logo is not and no one should use it without specific written permission. For that reason we ask that you please remove the CDC logo from your submission.

I’m Fred Smith, Technology Team Lead. I’m one of the judges for CDC’s Flu App Challenge. We are delighted to have received 96 submissions! We are even more delighted to see how strong and innovative many of them are.

But the sheer number of excellent submissions has created a small problem: we need a few more days to review them all! We will announce winners on or before 5:00 pm EDT on Friday June 17th.

We're very sorry about the delay. Trust me - we're working hard on our end!

The deadline to enter your app into the CDC's Flu App Challenge is approaching fast. You have until Friday, May 27, 2011 to enter your app for a chance to win the opportunity to have it featured on the CDC website and other prizes.

If you have an idea for an original application that helps spread influenza awareness and data provided by the CDC, then you could win a cash prize up to $15,000. Please review the rules of the challenge before submitting. Your app will be judged based on Data Criteria (20%), Technical Implementation (20%), Education Criteria (20%) and…

You’ve got 13 more days to enter your app into the CDC Flu App Challenge for a chance to win up to $35K in cash prizes. As you finalize your submission, remember that the goal of your app is to raise awareness of influenza and/or educate consumers on ways to prevent and treat the flu. How you communicate either of those messages in your solution is one of the judging criteria that will be used to determine whether your app is a winning one, or a losing one.

The attention seems to have increased awareness among developers, as the submissions are starting to pour in. So far, we have six contest entries. And with more than 600 tweet metions, and nearly 400 Facebook likes from the challenge page alone, we…

The CDC Flu App Challenge offers developers the freedom to create any solution they desire, whether it is for the web, a personal computer, a mobile handheld device, or any other platform broadly accessible to the open Internet. The only catch to that freedom is that submissions must use at least one data set from a select list of eight sources including influenza vaccination estimates, RSS feeds, JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) feeds, and an XML source for the Weekly Flu Activity Report. The full list of data sources can be viewed at http://fluapp.challenge.gov.

On April 6, 2011 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched the CDC Flu App Challenge! The contest offers $35,000 in prizes for the most innovative apps that use CDC flu data to create a technical solution that promotes healthy behavior for flu prevention. The Flu App Challenge is open for submissions through May 27. CDC will announce the winners on June 8.

We have an exciting panel of judges for the contest including Forum One Communications Chairman, Jim Cashel; Mark Smolinski, Director of Global Health Threats at the Skoll Global Threats Fund; Peter Speyer, Director of…